Biographers and Critics

In addition to the books and manuscripts of Frost himself, the Clifton Waller Barrett Library contains the manuscripts and proofs of several biographers, particularly those of Lawrance Thompson, the Princeton University professor selected by Frost as his official biographer in 1939.

In 1961 Frost and Thompson made a two week trip to Israel, Greece and England under State Department auspices. Frost had the opportunity to view briefly two cultures from which he had said in "Kitty Hawk" Western civilization had taken its "running start." Thompson kept this scrapbook of photographs, clippings, programs and other souvenirs of the trip.

Electrostatic copy of Chapter One, The Years of Triumph, annotated

ROBERT FROST: THE YEARS OF TRIUMPH, 1915-1938

Lawrance Thompson, a Wesleyan student and admirer of Frost's poetry, first met the poet when Frost volunteered to critique student verses. The two gradually developed a friendship based on their mutual love of New Hampshire that was renewed later when Thompson curated a Frost exhibit at Wesleyan and edited two speeches Frost gave at Princeton.

In 1939 Frost invited Thompson to Ripton to discuss the appointment of an official biographer. Thompson suggested Mark Van Doren, Bernard DeVoto and Louis Untermeyer, men who knew Frost well and had established literary reputations. Frost rejected all three and then surprised the young Thompson by naming him, stating that his dissertation on Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was "evidence" enough that Thompson was qualified.

Typescript copy of Chapter 16, The Later Years, annotated with research notes

ROBERT FROST: THE LATER YEARS, 1938-1963

In 1971 Lawrance Thompson received a Pulitzer Prize for Volume Two of his critically acclaimed biography of Frost. His research was nearly completed on the final volume when he was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor. With only months to live Thompson selected R. H. Winnick, one of his Princeton University graduate students, as his assistant. Less than a year later, after completion of the first draft, Thompson died. Using the draft, the insights of Frost's surviving friends and the knowledge of Frost that Thompson had shared with him, Winnick completed the work on Frost's final years as he believed Thompson would have interpreted them.

Title page, A Swinger of Birches

A SWINGER OF BIRCHES: A PORTRAIT OF ROBERT FROST

English professor Sidney Cox and Robert Frost shared a friendship from 1911 to Cox's death in 1952. Cox was an early champion of Frost and published sketches of the poet in 1929 and 1948. The posthumous Swinger of Birches contains an introduction by Frost in which the poet states "I am always happier to hear that I am liked faults and all than that I am disliked."

Preface, A Swinger of Birches

Contents, A Swinger of Birches

The Trial by Existence

ROBERT FROST: THE TRIAL BY EXISTENCE

Elizabeth Shepley Sergeant's biography of Frost was autographed for Monroe Wheeler at the Grolier Club, June 1, 1960, by Frost, Clifton Waller and Cornelia Barrett and other friends.

According to a note by Wheeler, Frost announced, "I'm here to betray a secret -- today is Waller's birthday." This book was purchased by the University of Virginia Library in honor of Joan St. C. Crane, Frost bibliographer, and Associate Curator of Rare Books.

Poetry and Prose

ROBERT FROST: POETRY AND PROSE

Edward Connery Lathem was a student in a class taught by Frost at Dartmouth. Frost encouraged Lathem's interests in fine printing and historical research in primary sources noting that "Fiction has one kind of thing it has to be true to and history another. I like the two kinds kept as separate as possible."

Lathem later edited books of Frost's poetry, prose and interviews and collaborated with Lawrance Thompson in 1972 on Robert Frost: Poetry and Prose.